The Shopping Cart Test posits that anyone who doesn’t return their shopping cart is a terrible person. But some parking lots are better than others. Perhaps there’s something else going on.
I talk a lot about yelling at politicians in this, but that’s not the only way to act, you can also solve systemic problems yourself! There are many ways to do this. If you see a systemic problem like no seating at bus stops, you can install a bench yourself. But overall, we need to be solving these problems with systemic solutions, not individually.
0:00 Intro/The Shopping Cart Test
4:28 Common Critiques
8:00 Who Can Make The Right Choice?
16:36 Why do people do “The Right Thing”?
21:50 Broken Windows Policing
31:53 Parking Lot Philosophies
37:26 The Spanish Flu
46:45 The Social Pressure To Be Terrible
49:29 I don’t want to be a good person
54:30 Conclusion
Sources and further reading:
https://www.keithsobus.com/blog/shoppingcarttheory
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/10/945136599/how-spanish-flu-pandemic-changed-home-heat-radiators
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-problem-with-broken-windows-policing/
https://www.governing.com/assessments/the-clouded-legacy-of-broken-windows-policing
https://cebcp.org/evidence-based-policing/what-works-in-policing/research-evidence-review/broken-windows-policing/
source
I'm 90% sure disabled people would be an obvious exception to the OP to be fair.
You're my new fave channel!! Such insightful and fun videos on unique topics
I think the shopping cart issue is also largely cultural. In my country up until covid basically all shopping carts required you to insert a coin that you'd only get back on returning it, and that pretty effectively motivated everyone to return the carts. During covid though several supermarkets made it mandatory to use a cart to enforce social distancing and limit the number of customers and they taped over the coin slots and just made the carts freely available. It's been several years and I still rarely see any unreturned carts. I think it really matters wether returning the carts is the norm and wether you know that there's an employee around who is paid to gather them etc. I would feel super uncomfortable leaving a cart in the parking lot because I would be the only one doing that.
what is a disk horse? Do you throw them or are they just flatter and oblong horses?
1:05 it's not zero cost for everyone though: people with small kids to look after may need to get them into car seats to be able to unload the cart, and then do they get the kids out again to return the cart, or leave their kids in the car to return the cart? Neither is risk-free, and getting the kids out is definitely not effort free.
Okay so this doesn't invalidate any of the points about returning shopping carts, but I live in a place that gets hella windy at times and loose shopping carts can absolutely be a source of harm and danger depending on what (or who) they hit. They can really get going if the wind is pushing downhill, like fast enough to break someone's bone or smash a taillight.
For the record, I don't care what other people do with their carts, most of the stores around me have employees who round up loose carts and prevent it from being an issue. I have the ability and I'm the type of person to feel guilty for inconveniencing people I've never seen or met, so I always put my cart in the corral, but I always thought it was because I'm kind of a neurotic person and putting the cart away helps me cope with that, not that I'm a good person or whatever. Calling people animals and degenerates for not putting away a cart, even if it poses a potential harm to others, is like one step away from either fascism, eugenics, or both.
I'm not sure how prevalent it is around the world, but when I was younger you had to put in a 5 kroner coin into the shopping cart to get access to it, and when you returned it the coin would pop back out
It isn't really a thing nowadays, I think it still might exist but I haven't used a shopping cart in years.
Also a lot of people used to have a fake coin in their keychain explicitly for shopping carts.
Anyways not really relevant to the video, just thought it was an interesting difference because here you did kinda get rewarded for returning the shopping cart
edit: this comment was brought to you by, someone that didn't watch the whole video before commenting
Thanks! Now I will have the urge to tell "Just fix the windows!" at cops.
Incredible how many people in this comment section have either not watched or not understood the video.
I'm a pro put-the-cart-back jihadist and I will judge people for it.
The odd thing is that I've noticed this is a uniquely American problem, the real litmus test isnt about what someone's moral character is but what their feelings about broader society are, countries like Japan never have this issue because it's a lot more collective while Americans are extremely individualistic, even though both countries have people with disabilities and mental illness the carts somehow always find their way back to their place.
Police officers really just wanna be the dad of their town. They want everyone to need them and fear them
Is there not a teenager being paid to run around and wrangle all the carts?? THAT'S what's wrong with society.
omg cat wine bottle spotted
i have like five of those dang things, they delight me. i am very lucky to have found a few of them at thrift stores, very very sad they aren't making them anymore
first name trash, last name discourse. thanks for being dinner company for me.
The idea of police is like preaching abstinence and banning sex ed. Telling people no is only gonna go so far. Giving people solutions and aid will go much much farther.
The worst part of that was someone recording a homeless person shaming them for "failing the shopping cart test".
21:50 The lack of "Nullum crimen sine damno sociali magis quam minimo" and it's consequences have been a disaster to the US.
Replacing carts is the BIGGEST SCAM EVER
There used to be jobs for disabled and young people in picking up the carts and now they try to guilt customers into stealing jobs from disabled and young people.
The argument you make is backwards.
I largely agree with your argument here, but I had no idea that returning shopping cars was this huge moral problem for americans until recently and it broke my brain.
@22:40 yes and no
Honestly, this is something I really struggle with. Every time I go outside I won't last 5 minutes before thinking "fuck all of you". People throwing their thrash on the ground, smoking in vicinity of others, disregarding traffic law, standing around with a power tool making noise instead of pre-planning how to do things quickly, playing music loud, coughing and sniffling and not wearing a mask, general disregard for the environment and society. It's really, really hard not to think "this person is an actual piece of shit and I hope they disappear" especially when I keep those things in mind. I pick up a piece of trash and throw it out or take a moment to fix a crooked sign or something and think "wow, I'm actually the biggest loser in this postal code." And I am just tired of being angry all the time
I miss being in the stage of my life where I hung out with smart people and had long conversations like this. Being a parent is cool, don't get me wrong. But entire days go by with no discourse above the second grade level.
There should just be carts of all kinds, all over. If someone needs to take one off a property, another will be returning with one… bc they're going shopping, so they bring a cart. On foot ofc… peeps in cars can just do whatever. The PEOPLE will fund a cart return reward. It will be awesome. There also can be cart return bins all over… like… ALL over. LFG!
I think you make some good points, but I also want to 'yes, and' a few things. For example, yes, it is a systemic issue, but its ALSO a cultural issue; social pressure does work, its just working in the wrong direction right now, because current culture reinforces it. Social pressure didn't work for getting people to wear masks during the current pandemic because the pressure to not wear masks was louder and more prevalent, but it DID work during the spanish flu, there are old photos of people wearing masks posing next to signs posted in public that shamed people for not wearing them, and you even mention that they wore masks during that pandemic.
I'm more familiar with a different version of shopping cart theory, which is not about people returning their own carts, its about people returning others' carts after they've been left behind. When I encountered the 4chan version, my interpretation was that the poster might have encountered the version I was familiar with, but either way, did the usual internet thing and took it to a stupid, purity-testing extreme. (purity testing is unhelpful BS, people should really stop bothering with it) The other version of the theory focuses on returning others' carts because its more concerned with how society benefits when people pick up the slack for others, whether that's as small as grabbing a shopping cart that someone else just did not have the time (or the ability) to return, or as significant as providing a place to live for an acquaintance who would otherwise be homeless.
Turns out, you can just help people because its within your ability to do so, without expecting anything in return, there's nothing stopping you. That mindset isn't common, currently, but that's a cultural issue. The dominant culture right now tells people that everything they do needs to be met with a return on investment, whether that's a favor owed or being paid or some faithful belief that the person will be rewarded in the afterlife. I had a habit of grabbing others' abandoned carts on my way to return my own long before I encountered any version of shopping cart theory; initially because my dad did, who was a devout christian and there was likely some expectation of that afterlife reward for him, but I don't think that was the whole reason for him, and I know its not why I still do it today. I don't like people owing me favors, I don't believe the same things my dad did, and I only put up with money as a concept as much as current culture forces it upon me because that's apparently how we determine whether people get literal necessities like food, shelter, and healthcare.
Thom hartmann of the Tom Hartman program is a hypocrite. 13 years I have called his stupid show about my green energy invention, last he called me greedy for having a patent. How on God's green earth am I going to give it to 8 billion people and not 4 100 generationally thinking families. I refuse to discourse with him. His call screeners act like 5 year olds.
"I dont want to use my ADHD as an excuse, but mostly I dont want to be accused of using my ADHD as an excuse" omg seen❤ (might be a bit paraphrased)
Are you afraid of stairs? WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE 😮
I think the key to the shopping cart theory is that the premise says there is no cost but there is a cost therefore the theory doesn’t hold up. If there was a truly zero cost net beneficial task that anyone could do, that would be an amazing morality test. However, reality isn’t so clean
Still watching, but I have to say, not putting your cart back, is a huge loss for those ppl
The parking lot is the best pace to the runny-ride thing with the cart! I'm always the one putting it away cuz it's so much fun to it :3 <3
Oh hey, I have that empty wine bottle too XD
Hi Trash, thanks for welcoming me to your channel, I will listen to whatever you want to talk about
"You might have to individually yell at a politician"
Convenient, I was going to do that anyway.
A philosopher friend of a friend, after leaving his cart just sitting, justified it with the response "I'm creating work."
I have always found these 'holier than thou' competitions to be cringe.
I have always returned my cart or I leave it in store if I can carry my bags.
At the same time I have also helped others that I noticed we're getting overwhelmed. Kids, disability, age, etc.
I agree with the convenience argument. I think that the US oversized parking lots also play a role in why these things don't get returned.
The majority of Aldi's that I have been to have very small simple parking lots. Not that I have never seen someone 'tip' the employees and leave their cart in the parking lot.
I genuinely think that just having more simple parking lots that aren't basically stadiums would be beneficial in more ways then one.
I'm from AK and I remember a few times wherever the snow removers would leave all of the snow in the cart dock. Or the cart's wheels would freeze and get stuck in the slush. A lot of people left their carts, and so did the employees till things thawed out. I would love to see Twitter, as an example, go after everyone in my home state.
Unconditionally hating people for mild acts of inconvenience is stupid.
💖
Ok when I worked at a grocery store I enjoyed atrolling around to get the carts, not that anyone cares
i look at this from the worker point of view. When people make retail workers' days just a little better, it means the world and makes everything seem much less hopeless and alone
The Shopping Cart Test is checking a symptom, it doesnt point to the cause.
Change the incentive, change the world.
Why I always return it: What if the cart rolls downhill into someone's car, or it's an obstacle in a dimly lit parking lot. Surface damage to an unhoused person's car can expose metal to rusting. It takes 30 seconds for me, and I can not bear the thought of unhousing someone further